I’ve been in the Seattle area for a couple of weeks.  I’m continually reminded that I did my trip completely backwards, starting in the colder areas and moving to the warmer areas as the weather improved.  I other words, Seattle is still pretty gloomy.

But, I’ve had a great time here so far, mostly checking about various things in the city, and getting a lot of work done in a place where nobody has much of a reason to bother me.

So far I’ve been to

- Bus Stop (great bar)

- Bleu (great date restaurant)

- Tap House Grill (terrible multitap)

- Rock Bottom Brewery (a good example of a chain brewery)

- Long Provincial Vietnamese (great food, wacky service, though it’s brand new)

- a Circus Contraption show at Theo Chocolate.  (highly recommended.  a circus gone wrong happening as the world is ending outside.  great.)

- Tully’s Coffee in Bellevue (I know coffee is supposed to be better in Seattle, but I dunno)

- Red Hook Brewery in ..? Somewhere north.

Busy couple of weeks.  I also got to hang out with my old friend Meishan from LA (who I hadn’t seen in 9 years!) and Mike (from MD, who I hadn’t seen in at least 5 years). If nothing else, Airstreaming definitely has renewed a lot of good friendships. I leave Sunday for the bay area (14 hour attack run!)..

Oregon, Washington

After averting engine and backup disaster on I-84, I spent the next 18 hours or so in Portland.  This would be first old-friend-reunion of the trip, as I spent most of my time with my old friend Chris (who owns a design company called Silktricky), who grew up near me back in PA.  We hadn’t seen each other in about 14 years, but had a great time hanging out in Portland.

I have no sense of geography, so I can’t really say where we were, but check my Yelp reviews if you care (http://beer.yelp.com)

This was my first true urban camping experience.  Meaning, I parked the rig on the street and slept in it.  This was also my first experience with ground clearance on the airstream, as some of the hills in Portland were way too steep, and I was dragging the rear bumper quite a bit.  A horrible noise, but no harm done.

Portland seemed pretty awesome; I want to spend more time there.  I have realized that I did this trip absolutely backwards so far — I should’ve started in LA in Feb/Mar, then Bay Area Apr/May, then PNW June/July.  Oh well, next year.

Oregon

I’ve done a lot of driving in the last 14 years.  Mostly on the east coast, but three cross country trips as well as plenty of driving in southern california and whatnot.  However, the I-84 Columbia Gorge corridor is in the top 5 scenic drives that I’ve ever done.

The Columbia Gorge is one of the country’s only (if not the only) National Scenic Areas.  Several hours of driving through a canyon, carved out of the surrounding hills by the Columbia river over I guess millions of years.

It’s about an hour and a half from The Dalles to Portland if you drive quickly, but towing and taking sideroads and checking out waterfalls can make the drive take a lot longer.  All of the shots below are from the Rowena Crest lookout point.

Oregon

I’m not sure why The Dalles exists.  Granted, that goes for a lot of places that I’ve visited in the last three months — most of the area between San Jose and San Francisco serves no purpose, either.  It’s just a place to store people.  People storage, that’s my new name for the south bay.

I think The City of the Dalles exists for the sheer purpose of having the most awesome name in the United States.  Sure, there are places like Intercourse, Blue Ball, and Bird-in-Hand (all in PA), but no city is daring enough to have “City” at the beginning of its name instead of the end, nor bold enough to put the word “the” in the middle.

When people heard I was traveling to THE DALLES (it’s even more powerful when you capitalize it), they asked, “what is that?  I’ve heard of it but didn’t understand.”  Many of them pronounced it “The Dallas,” which is.. totally wrong.

I don’t have a lot more to say about The Dalles.  The Baldwin Saloon (http://www.yelp.com/biz/baldwin-saloon-the-dalles) is an amazing place to eat and drink – I met a bunch of incredibly friendly locals.  Nelson Tire Factory fixed a leak for me and tightened my hitch ball for free.  I camped in a parking lot near the river.  The trains that go through here are extremely long and frequent, and almost have a mysterious quality — they gave me the feeling that I can only assume made my grandfather enamored with trains for most of his life.

The Dalles also has some other neat engineering feats, like a hydroelectric dam and various other technological marvels under heavy guard that are not open to the public.  There’s also apparently a great no-kill animal shelter.  I love Oregon, did I mention this?

Wikipedia just told me that The Dalles’s main claim to fame is that it is the end of the Oregon Trail.  And now you have died of dysentery.

Oregon

Continuing north on I-5, I crossed into Oregon.  The only things I knew about Oregon before this trip were that my uncle was from there, Oregon State produces great sysadmin interns, and that I used to have a t-shirt as a kid that said “Oregon Tree Shirt.”

Oregon is awesome.  One of my top three states.  (PA, CA, OR, in no particular order)  It’s green, literally and figuratively, forward-thinking, friendly, ridiculously scenic, outdoor-oriented, and, well, it’s basically what Pennsylvania should be.  Pennsylvania is squandering its potential Oregonness, which is a damn shame.

My first stop in Oregon was at the Deerwood RV Park (deerwoodrvpark.com), which is a nice little park south of Eugene.  The owner/operator, Mike, is a helluva nice guy — I will definitely stay there again if I’m in the area.  My main business in Eugene, though, was George M Sutton RV to get some work done on the airstream.  (Wheel bearing repack, toilet seal replacement were the main things)  They didn’t actually fix the toilet leak, unfortunately, but I at least feel better about towing now that I’ve had the long-overdue bearing repack.

While I was waiting for the work to be done, I spent most of the day in Eugene.  The weather was rainy, which was unfortunate for dog-activities, so Magic and I spent most of the day in and out of the truck, driving around to different parts of Eugene.  We stopped by a great veg breakfast place near the train station, went up to one of the bluffs, drove around the U of O (looks amazing – it’s also apparently set in an outdoor arboretum, hundreds of species of trees all over the campus), and went to a record store where I picked up the “Keep Eugene Weird” sticker.

Eugene was weird, but in an awesome sort of way.  Pics below.

Oregon